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“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”

— Warren Buffett

The above quote from Warren Buffett is timeless, and brings into focus the choice about time horizon that any investor should think about before buying a stock they are considering. Behind every stock is an actual business; what will that business look like over a ten year period?

Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2009, and take a look at what happened to investors who asked that very question about Intuitive Surgical Inc (NASD: ISRG), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a ten year holding period.

Start date: 04/13/2009
$10,000

04/13/2009
$152,862

04/11/2019
End date: 04/11/2019
Start price/share: $38.24
End price/share: $584.63
Starting shares: 261.51
Ending shares: 261.51
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 1,428.84%
Average annual return: 31.35%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $152,862.43

As we can see, the ten year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 31.35%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $152,862.43 today (as of 04/11/2019). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 1,428.84% (something to think about: how might ISRG shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

More investment wisdom to ponder:
“Though tempting, trying to time the market is a loser’s game.” — Christopher Davis